Making a House Home
by ishdirections
Summary: He was stuck on this plot of land with this in-progress house and he could not leave.
1. Tivo

Tivo didn't really know how he got here. He was an aspiring food photographer, yet he was stuck on this plot of land with this in-progress house and he couldn't leave.

He had reentered the cycle he had hoped to escape. Growing up, his family had been under the control of a careless god who seem to be unaware of the flow of time that affected his family. Tivo remembers a time where his mother spent each day writing an email to the god and begged for attention. The god was the only source of medicine, the only source of furniture and food, and the only source of children. What was the worth of money that you couldn't spend? Absolutely nothing. Tivo remembers the time with a heavy heart. Weak and hungry, his parents tried to make sure his siblings and him continued to move forward.

The only salvation was college. Once he reached college age, he would be whisked away to college, a weird place in which time did not move regularly and no one was hungry or tired. He wondered if it was the afterworld, but it wasn't because sometimes, people got called back (and always involuntary). His mother said college was a lottery system. You would become another entry to inherit the homes of your parents or you would be entered in the marriage entry system. He didn't know what scared him more: the void of college with the threat of returning always looming over him or the reality of living on the whims of a forgetful god.

He knew there was an omniscient being watching over him (but only occasionally). He knew from the urges he felt that made him run over to weed the garden, to pick up leaves, to prepare meals, and to clean the floors. He knew from the groceries that would arrive on his kitchen table even though he had no way of buying groceries. He knew from the way he would be be stuck in a repetition at the same piece of furniture trying to figure out what the correct action was expected on him. He knew from how his illnesses would linger until the right medicine would appear in front of him, even though he had already searched through the house for medicine. Furniture and upgrades to the house would appear at random. He hoped that the god watching him was benevolent.

The first night he arrived, the house seemed empty and daunting. He looked around checking out how only three rooms were livable and all others were taped off or boarded up. The yard was overrun with weeds and the socks and wrappers littered the floor within the house. The fridge had some food, but not a lot. Then, he noticed four grocery bags full of organic groceries. He tried to place the groceries into the cupboards and the fridge, but then the overwhelming urge to go outside and weed the yard took him. He couldn't resist and he went to weed the yard until the yard was weedless. Only then, could he return back to the kitchen to put away the groceries.

But once task was complete, the urge to work overwhelmed him. Walking over the kitchen workstation, he began to make food to photograph. While working, Tivo was concerned. Was this going to be his life? Alone, in this home, performing only the actions the god allowed him?


	2. Viva

Her parents had warned her about living. They told her to pray. But she prayed often and without results. It wasn't that she didn't believe. She knew and felt the signs of the god, the absence and the presence. She knew when her family got sick and there was no medicine in the home. She knew when the groceries of organic quality appeared on the kitchen table as if to make up for all the lost time. She was angry, but she was powerless against the god.

After leaving her family behind for college and reentering her family home from the limbo, she looked at the family tree. She had wondered about the family she had been forced to leave behind and she was sadden to know that her younger brother had dead before he could go to college, get a job, get dislikes and likes, and other things she had the opportunity to encounter.

But there was no time to reflect on that. She had orders to follow and an email to read. She opened it to find a marriage proposal to a man named Yodo. Would this be the man she was to marry? Would this be the man she would raise a family with? Sadly, yes, it would.

Soon after that email, Yodo appeared at her front door steps. She rushed out to greet him and show him around. The first encounter, he smiled at her and she knew that she wouldn't mind sharing a home with him.

Soon after marriage, she felt the urge to have children. Her mother had told her stories while she laid on the sofa about how she had Viva the night of the marriage. She asked if she would be forced to have children that quickly. Her mother had looked her in the eye and said "You can never be sure." She spent the rest of the week fretting. Would her future husband be thoughtful? Would she have to live in a strained relationship with a man who would father her children but not hold her heart?

Their first attempt for children resulted in twin girls! Raising Cookie and Dakota for two years replaced her job of jewelry making. Yodo told her not to worry because he made enough money to take care of all of them.

Then, the first upgrade to the house occurred. The west room was being exterminated of bugs! Maybe it was a gift for the twins? There was such joy in the household from the new expansion. Then, it began to fill up. The adult bed from the computer room got moved to the bedroom! Then, a pink children's bed got moved into the bedroom! A stuffed elephant plushie got placed onto the children's bed. The sofa that hung around awkwardly in the bathroom got moved across the beds and then a classic TV appeared! How wonderful! Maybe, this time around, it wouldn't be so bad.

But then, it felt that as soon as her girls were able to manage on their own, she got saddled with another baby. She didn't not love Kiki. She just wanted to progress in her career. Then after Kiki, it was Artor. However, she had the chance for six years to work on her career and it progressed so slowly. Her first promotion and pay raise occurred, but then she had Ata. Yodo didn't really understand why she was upset. Her current life was so much better than her parents. No children were dying, everyone was happy, food was in the fridge, and illnesses got cured! There was a bedroom with beds and a TV! But Viva wasn't satisfied and she didn't think she ever would be.


	3. Fabetta Eudora

As the youngest of six, Fabetta was always accustomed to a loud and rambunctious household. But now, she stood in a quiet house with the family cat, Noir, sitting by her feet.

It didn't feel like home as she walked through the hallways littered with black stains, socks, and wrappers. There were markings on the bathroom wall of children measuring heights. Childish scrawlings of her siblings and her mother and her uncle were on the wall. Would her children write their names next to hers one day?

Viva had told her that she didn't plan for six children. In a house with one child's bed, she had planned for one at a time. But then, twins! And it seemed like her plans would never come to fruition.

Fabetta got to work dusting and cleaning up the house. Socks from the previous generation piled up in the bathroom. Maybe, during her time here, the house will acquire a washing machine.

Then, an email came. It was a marriage proposal from a man named Nobel. The decision was pending on her screen. She waited at the desk wondering if this would be the man she would be expected to have children with and he was.

An arupt marriage like her mother and her grandfather. Her family didn't have to wait too long to get married, but Fabetta had always hope that she wouldn't get married so soon. Her mother, Viva, hadn't been able to progress through her career because she was always taking care of the children. Fabetta wanted maybe one or two children. Never such a full household like her mother, but not empty either.

* * *

Eudora lingered in the workshop working on another job. In her hands were the tools passed down from generations before her. But, this morning wasn't going so well. Shaking her head, she placed the tools back into the toolbox and moved to the kitchen to start making breakfast.

She passed by her adopted daughter, Katetta, who was studying at the kitchen island.

"You'll have to move", she told her, "I'm going to make lunch." Compiling, her daughter began to move all her study materials to the office.

Eudora was quickly approaching 39 and she was worried. She didn't get any marriage proposals after moving in the house. Luckily, she wasn't lonely with her daughter that appeared on her doorstep the night she moved in and the black cat that roamed the area. But, Katetta was approaching the age where she would go off to college and then Eudora would be all alone in the house.

She didn't know what went wrong. All those before her had gotten matched up the first day, but here she was with no prospects. Her mother, Fabetta, told her about all about her dreams to not be tied down so quickly to have children and save enough money to buy a washing machine. It seemed that Eudora had fulfilled her mother's dream: no marriage, no halt on career to have children, and a washing machine. But, it wasn't her dream.

Every night, she wished for a children's bedroom full of children. She grew up as a only child and spent the days in the yard digging up fossils and picking up bugs without company. But without a husband, there was a slim chance that she would ever be able to have more children.


End file.
